Monday, July 25, 2016

I don't get to California very often. In my 46-plus years, I might've made a dozen trips there. And every single time, I'm struck by how very different it is from the East Coast of my familiar haunting. Visually, ethnically, culturally, politically, and on and on. One small yet telling case in point:

I'm in Long Beach this week for a conference (did you know it's the nation's 36th largest city, bigger than St. Louis?). Downtown Long Beach is a cool mix of locally owned restaurants, bars, waterfront, and hotels and convention facilities (also, homeless people, surf bums, and loons). Many of the cross streets have walk/don't walk signals. As is the custom amongst East Coasters, I approach those don't walk signals, look both ways, and if there's no traffic coming, cross at my own risk. On multiple occasions while here, I've walked past locals waiting patiently for the light to change. And on more than one occasion, people have politely offered their concerns to me about the risk I'm taking.

Just like those fast casual concepts, you choose your base, your protein, and your fixings, but in the case of Poke Bar, your protein is raw fish - tuna, salmon, octopus, scallops, and so on. And the fixings are seaweed salad, jalapeno, pineapple, cucumber, kale, green onions, cilantro et al. Poke is a traditional Hawaiian mix, and it's perfect for this concept. It's fucking delicious, and I'll choose to believe that it's really good for me, too.

I've never had any interest in opening a franchise, but I'm seriously considering making a call to the owners of Poke Bar, who have twenty or so California-based locations today, and begging them to let me open some on the East Coast. That'll happen eventually, and it will kill. Hit me up in the comments if you want in.

Poke has become a bit of a thing in my area of Florida. The local specialty market sells it, there's a food truck that specializes in it and even better (for me at least) is that my wife makes it pretty frequently. I prefer tuna as my protein and usually include avocado and rice as my other main ingredients. It's easy to make. If you can marinate tuna and cook rice, you're in pretty good shape.

have seen the Poke(y) Bar's there in Cali but never ventured into one. We've got a Salt Life restaurant down the road here from work. They have a Poke bowl - with tuna - on the menu. It's very good if not a little overpriced at roughly $14.00. I like to stay under $10.00 for lunch if possible.

It has been a while since our last real family vacation. That changes next week with a trip to Hilton Head with a couple of other families from NC. Deep sea fishing, gawlf, loads of beach time, and copious amounts of booze are in store.

If you find yourself on the Virginia Peninsula, go over to what was Fort Monroe to A joint called the Deadrise and get the tip-top Pearl City Poke Salad, a Vienna Lager, and a cool view. The tuna it is so good that I have run it back and doubled up on more than one visit.

A couple recommendations: Lowcountry Backyard is a great, southern eatery (but probably not if you have a huge party). If you can offload the sitters, eat and drink there. And take the whole crew to Shelter Cove Harbour early one evening to see Shannon Tanner's free music show. You can park them in front of the stage, and then order cocktails from the nearby outdoor bars.

We are headed to Sea Pines in late August. Went to Palmetto Dunes the last two years.

That's a good question TR. One of the wives in the group booked it with our input. With 3 families in the house we had to base decision more on the house itself than location. I will check out tomorrow. Thanks for the recs though, especially the music venue.